- #1
Loren Booda
- 3,125
- 4
If George W. Bush were serving a third term as president now, what state do you believe our country would be in?
MotoH said:The news organizations wouldn't have anything to talk about because there would be no health care reform.
Ivan Seeking said:Interesting comment considering that both parties support health care reform.
MotoH said:You really think that there would have been a universal health care reform if GWB would have been in for a third term? I do not think so.
Ivan Seeking said:Interesting comment considering that both parties support health care reform.
Proton Soup said:which means what, exactly?
Have you been sleeping for the last four months? The Republicans are giving the wake-up call this time around.Proton Soup said:the republicans had become complacent and decadent. what's funny is how fast they fell after Bill Clinton. thing is, I'm not sure they're getting the wakeup call this time.
rewebster said:denial and bankruptcy
MotoH said:The defense budget most likely wouldn't be so over bloated, seeing that the Democrats (and Republicans) took the bill and ran with it this year.
rewebster said:"Tuesday, February 6, 2007
President Bush's defense budget request of $481.4 billion -- an 11 percent boost over last year -- pushes U.S. defense spending to levels not seen since the Reagan-era buildup of the 1980s. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/05/AR2007020501552.html
"WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2008 – President Bush signed the fiscal 2009 defense budget into law today, authorizing a $512 billion base to support military readiness, as well as $66 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan."
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=51494
Obama can't cut it overnight when he has been handed two 'wars'.
"More ominously, Mr. Obama's budget has overall defense spending falling sharply starting in future years -- to $614 billion in 2011, and staying more or less flat for a half decade."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123595811964905929.html
WhoWee said:Can you please explain?
Isn't Obama outspending Bush? Aren't we seeing a public backlash to Obama's policies? Are we printing money and raising the national debt limit (for the second time in 10 months)?
Is Gitmo closed? Are we out of Iraq? Did the Stimulus contain unemployment at 8%? Were healthcare debates televised on C-span? Were "earmarks" eliminated (over 8,000 on the first Bill Obama signed)? Did Obama run the Lobbyists out of town? Did Caterpillar hire a lot of new workers?
Shall I go on? Denial and bankruptcy - good luck explaining your point.
Ivan Seeking said:Recall also that the first bailout was under Bush. That was the one thing he did right... that, and when he started ignoring Cheney and Rummy. The fact is that Bush's policies as he left office were quickly approaching those sought now by Obama. The biggest difference is that we are actually going after the terrorist camps and leaders as our primary focus, militarily.
We've gotten something like 13 of Al Qaeda's top 20 leaders in recent months, using drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
rewebster said:"Gross debt in nominal dollars quadrupled during the Reagan and Bush presidencies from 1980 to 1992. The Public debt quintupled in nominal terms. In nominal dollars the public debt rose and then fell between 1992 and 2000 from $3T in 1992 to $3.4T in 2000. But if measured in constant 2008 dollars the public debt actually fell over the period. During the administration of President George W. Bush, the gross debt increased from $5.6 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008,[6] rising from 58% of GDP to 70.2% of GDP."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debtAmerica wasn't in the greatest financial condition when Obama took over---maybe you weren't aware of things that were going on prior to and in Jan. of 2009, and what lead to the present situation."Wasn't the Stimulus Bill $787 Billion? "
what? do you think someone can end/stop a flood AFTER the dam has already broken?
Ivan Seeking said:I mean exactly what I said. We need it, but under Bush it would never happen; at least not under the Bush that we know. It would violate his beloved ideology that helped to create the mess we are in today.
WhoWee said:You used the words "denial and bankruptcy ". Now you seem to be pretending that Obama's spending over the next few years will not far exceed Bush's spending. Next, you fail to recognize that Obama's Stimulus Bill was larger than the military numbers you've posted. Plus, you've evaded answering my question regarding Obama's broken promises altogether - in my world - THAT is denial.
rewebster said:evading? denial? sorry, I'm not used to the Rush Limbaugh approach in the way of your responses.
If you just want to jump around, I'll let someone else with a similar approach as yours to continue the debate if someone wants to.
You can go on...but go on doing what?WhoWee said:Can you please explain?
Isn't Obama outspending Bush? Aren't we seeing a public backlash to Obama's policies? Are we printing money and raising the national debt limit (for the second time in 10 months)?
Is Gitmo closed? Are we out of Iraq? Did the Stimulus contain unemployment at 8%? Were healthcare debates televised on C-span? Were "earmarks" eliminated (over 8,000 on the first Bill Obama signed)? Did Obama run the Lobbyists out of town? Did Caterpillar hire a lot of new workers?
Shall I go on? Denial and bankruptcy - good luck explaining your point.
MotoH said:The defense budget most likely wouldn't be so over bloated, seeing that the Democrats (and Republicans) took the bill and ran with it this year.
rewebster said:"Tuesday, February 6, 2007
President Bush's defense budget request of $481.4 billion -- an 11 percent boost over last year -- pushes U.S. defense spending to levels not seen since the Reagan-era buildup of the 1980s. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/05/AR2007020501552.html
"WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2008 – President Bush signed the fiscal 2009 defense budget into law today, authorizing a $512 billion base to support military readiness, as well as $66 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan."
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=51494
Obama can't cut it overnight when he has been handed two 'wars'.
"More ominously, Mr. Obama's budget has overall defense spending falling sharply starting in future years -- to $614 billion in 2011, and staying more or less flat for a half decade."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123595811964905929.html
WhoWee said:Wasn't the Stimulus Bill $787 Billion?
Gokul43201 said:What rewebster did was respond to a very specific assertion - one about military spending. What you did was post a non sequitur.
Of course I'm defending the correct post. Can you not read posts #4, #14 and #15, that make up that exchange, or do you want me to post screen shots for you?WhoWee said:If you'd like to defend rewebster, then defend the correct post and keep my response in context - please.
Gokul43201 said:What rewebster did was respond to a very specific assertion - one about military spending. What you did was post a non sequitur.
Has he? What I recall is he made a promise and then immediately started making "exceptions" to it - before he even got into office. But in any case, I'd like to see a citation of that 90% reduction. According to CNN, the lobbyist business is booming:Gokul43201 said:As for running the lobbyists out of town, all Obama has done so far is reduce the number of lobbyists in the administration by over an order of magnitude compared to Bush. Using the term in its literal sense, that's better than a decimation. But jeez, if cutting down lobbyist presence by some 90% is reason for trashing Obama, then I don't see how a rational discussion is to be salvaged here.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/12/news/economy/lobbying/index.htmLobbying appears to be recession-proof, according to a report out by the Center for Responsive Politics today.
Companies and interest groups spent a record $3.47 billion on federal lobbying in 2009, a 5% increase over the year before, according to the watchdog group, which tracks money in U.S. politics at its site OpenSecrets.org.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...r-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/Former lobbyist in the White House? It's okay if they say it's okay.
Updated: Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | By Angie Drobnic Holan
Of the 513 promises we're tracking, this one has become the most controversial. It is the cornerstone of President Obama's campaign theme about limiting the influence of special interests.
During the campaign, Obama said many times that lobbyists would not run his White House, and the campaign delighted in tweaking rival John McCain for the former lobbyists who worked on McCain's campaign.
Obama's ethics proposals specifically spelled out that former lobbyists would not be allowed to "work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years." On his first full day in office, Obama signed an executive order to that effect.
But the order has a loophole — a "waiver" clause that allows former lobbyists to serve. That waiver clause has been used at least three times, and in some cases, the administration allows former lobbyists to serve without a waiver.
After examining the administration's actions for the past two months, we have concluded that Obama has broken this promise.
The waiver process in the executive order is certainly official-looking. But the waivers are granted by the Obama administration itself, and are little more than the administration saying a former lobbyist is okay. For a candidate who pledged to conduct business out in the open, there is little transparency about when a waiver is required. Even good-government advocates we spoke with who praised Obama's overall policy found the waiver process to be unclear.
By itself, the nomination of former Raytheon lobbyist William J. Lynn to be deputy defense secretary provides sufficient evidence for us to rate this a broken promise. Lynn's waiver requires that he not participate "personally and substantially" in any matter in which Raytheon is a party for one year, which directly contradicts Obama's campaign pledge and executive order to make ex-lobbyists wait two years.
But there's more than just Lynn. The administration's handling of other former lobbyists provides further evidence that the promise has been broken:
* In some cases, the White House apparently has decided that former lobbyists don't need waivers at all. If the former lobbyists simply recuse themselves from discussions concerning whatever interest it is for which they used to lobby, then that suffices.
russ_watters said:All we can really know is things that Obama did that Bush would not have, such as the stimulus bill
I heard it on NPR - albeit several months ago - but I'll dig up some citations (or retract the claim). What I recall hearing was that the number of lobbyists and former lobbyists has gone from a couple hundred under Bush to a couple dozen under Obama. I also recall that Bush started off by filling [large number - can't recall exactly, but many dozens - will look for reference] positions in his transition team with lobbyists (i.e., he got off to a running start with appointing lobbyists into the administration). And then there was something about how many of the lobbyists (again, I believe many dozens) hired by Bush were in positions where they were regulating the same industry they had/were continuing to be lobbying for (or at least continuing to receive paychecks from their firm, or something similar).russ_watters said:Has he? What I recall is he made a promise and then immediately started making "exceptions" to it - before he even got into office. But in any case, I'd like to see a citation of that 90% reduction.
This is interesting and easily worthy of a thread to itself.According to CNN, the lobbyist business is booming: http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/12/news/economy/lobbying/index.htm
Broken promises - sure! Relevance to this thread - none!And politifact.org considers this a "promise broken" http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...r-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/
So to sum up:
-He made a promise.
-He enacted new rules designed to keep the promise.
-The rules included loopholes to allow him to get around the promise - and he invoked them almost immediately.
-Later, he stopped bothering even to invoke the loopholes...which is a sticky situation, since that seems to put him in violation of his own ethics rules. But no matter, I guess - since he's the arbiter of his own rules, there's really no enforcement or penalty for breaking them anyway.
Yes, I guess we will...once the thread starts showing some resemblance to being on topic again.I guess we'll just have to wait and see about that "rational discussion" thing...
russ_watters said:So near as I can tell, if Bush were in office, we'd probably be in about the same place economically as we are now...
MotoH said:Do you want someone who will shotgun PBR's with you, or do you want someone who will drink appletinis?
MotoH said:BTW Cheney isn't invited. . . He will take shotgunning literally.
Gokul43201 said:Of course I'm defending the correct post. Can you not read posts #4, #14 and #15, that make up that exchange, or do you want me to post screen shots for you?
You however, are now citing a completely different post than the one you quoted in post #15, which both immediately followed as well as quoted rewebster's post #14, which in turn quoted and responded to a specific part of post #4.
Sheesh!